Snafu Again Holds Up Jailed Man`s Release

Seven weeks have passed since an appeals court ruled that Gerry Myers should not have been tried, let alone convicted and imprisoned, on a cocaine trafficking charge.

Yet when the sun went down on Friday, freedom was still out of reach for Myers, 42.

The state 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach did not issue a mandate for his release until Oct. 31.

The mandate was lost in the mail during the 10-block trip to Circuit Judge Marvin Mounts.

A copy of the mandate was finally hand-delivered to Mounts on Friday morning, and he signed the necessary release forms. But corrections officials in Tallahassee would not release Myers until they had a certified copy of the judge`s order.

That copy will not reach Tallahassee until Monday morning.

So Myers, who has served more than 1 1/2 years of a five-year sentence, must spend one more weekend at the Lantana Community Correctional Center.

``It`s terrible,`` Myers said Friday. ``Why do all these mess-ups have to occur?

A day earlier, when first told of the snarls delaying his release, Myers had said, ``Maybe they want to take their last poke at me. They`ve certainly done it.``

Until 1984, Myers had no record of taking or selling drugs. He was a Palm Beach financial consultant and a family man.

But on May 23 of that year he was arrested after selling $38,000 in cocaine to an undercover West Palm police officer.

Myers did not contest the charge during his trial later that year, but argued that he had been badgered into committing the crime by a confidential informant.

The informant, John Trent, later was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a West Palm Beach hotel manager. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Myers` appeal attorney, Jeffrey Anderson, argued that Mounts never should have allowed the Myers case to go to trial.

The appeals court agreed, noting a Florida Supreme Court ruling that police are not permitted to create ``entrapment scenarios in which the innocent will succumb to temptation.``

Mounts, the court ruled, should have exercised his authority to determine that police used ``inappropriate techniques`` in Myers` case and to dismiss the charges against him.

Unlike many of the accused, those charged with certain drug trafficking offenses cannot be released on bond, either at the trial or appeal level, Anderson said. Nor can a prisoner be released while the prosecution seeks a rehearing of an appeals court decision, as happened in this case.

Nor was there any way of avoiding the long wait between the appeals court`s Sept. 17 decision and Myers` ultimate release, Anderson said -- except the delay occasioned by the postal snarl.

``All the steps were necessary,`` Anderson said. ``Or should I just say, `required?` ``

Myers, who has served time at the minimum-security prison in Lawtey and at a Martin County vocational center, is now on work-release at the Lantana center. His job: pizzamaker.

When the appeals court made its decision, Myers was too relieved to be bitter about his experience. Since then, however, his anger has risen.

``Obviously, I`m very elated,`` Myers said, ``But listen: This has devastated my family beyond what you could imagine. This has scarred me. I can`t even put into words the daily devastation that one goes through.``